A New Audio Drama From Bob Tinsley

by TVWriter™ Press Service

TVWriter friend and audio drama pundit, Bob Tinsley, has a new audio drama out called Wild Bill Hangs Up His Badge, Episode 35 of the Drift & Ramble Podcast.

Bob wrote, cast, directed, and produced the episode which explores the events leading up to Wild Bill Hickok’s decision to give up the life of a lawman.

For those who may not know much about him, James Butler Hickok, more popularly known as Wild Bill, farmed, drove freight wagons, fought for the North in the Civil War, scouted for George Armstrong Custer, gambled, prospected for gold, though Charlie Utter would have argued that point, and served as a lawman in various places in Kansas during his short life.

During the last year of his life he was world-weary and suffering from an advanced case of glaucoma. He was going blind. In the days before Bill’s murder, Colorado Charlie Utter, concerned about his drinking and gambling, tried to steer him into other lines of endeavor that would keep his interest and not lead him further into dissipation.

Maybe one of those suggestions was that he become the unofficial peacekeeper in wild and woolly Deadwood. This audio drama is how that conversation between Wild Bill and Charlie might have gone.

“This was the third audio drama I had taken from concept to finished product,” said Bob. “The sound effects in this one were much more complex than anything I had done before. I took the Gunsmoke radio show as my model, a dense soundscape.

“Every time I started a new scene I’d get anxious,” he continued, “first about finding the effects I needed, then about getting them all overlaid properly without futzing out the dialogue. The scene had to be set with the sound, no visuals. I had wagons, horses, footsteps of several kinds, a wooden ladder, saloon pianos, crowds, a huge fight, wild lines, pouring drinks, swallowing, gunshots, layers on layers. It was a real challenge.”